A Palestinian woman who gave birth to quadruplets at Ashkelon's Barzilai Hospital this week cannot have her husband visit her from Khan Yunis nor will Israel let her return to him in the Gaza Strip.
Hawla Fadlalla has been at Barzilai for more than a month. She had been heading from Gaza to Nablus, where she planned to seek treatment at a clinic, but she never made it there. At Gaza's Erez checkpoint, she went into early labor. With her life in danger, she was taken to nearby Barzilai Hospital instead.
"I want my husband beside me now, to see his children," Hawla told the Palestinian liaison official who called her Thursday to congratulate her on the quadruplets.
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He explained to her that Israel would not allow her husband to enter.
Hawla said that before she was admitted to Barzilai, she was asked to sign a commitment not to return to the Gaza Strip.
"I signed. At that moment all I could think about was getting to a hospital," she said Thursday. "Now he can't be with me and the children, and we cannot go to him."
For her husband, Issam Fadlalla, the news of the birth was bittersweet. "It is difficult to describe the joy, because it is mixed with a bit of sorrow. I would have liked to have been with her. I haven't seen her for more than a month," he said.